Lower back muscles are often severed during back surgery. When the severed back muscles heal, they are usually tighter than they were before surgery. The back muscles become so tight in some patients that the patients are unable to walk when they first wake up in the morning. Before walking, these patients must first reduce the tension on the lower back by either loosening their lower back muscles or muscles connected to the lower back muscles such as the leg muscles.
Loosening the leg muscles reduces the tension exerted by the leg muscles on the lower back muscles, thereby reducing lower back tension. The method commonly used for loosening the leg muscles during rehabilitation is for the patient to manually stretch the hamstring, calf and gluteus muscles with the help of his/her hands pulling on the legs and feet. The drawback of this method is that it is not only tiring for the patient but it is also difficult to properly stretch all the desired muscle groups.
The method commonly used for directly loosening the lower back muscles is to electrically stimulate the lower back muscles with an electro-stimulation device. The drawback with this method is that electro-stimulation devices are expensive, making them unavailable to some patients. In addition, electro-stimulation devices do not relieve lower back tension as effectively as stretching the hamstring, calf and gluteus muscles.